Famous AI influencers

13 famous AI and virtual influencers

A virtual influencer is a made-up person run as a social media account. The older ones are 3D characters; the newer ones come from AI image and video models. What is an AI influencer? explains the difference.

Check the dates before you compare: Rozy’s 47,000 is from 2021 and Imma’s 250,000 from 2020.

The biggest AI influencers on Instagram

Nobody Sausage and Lu do Magalu trade first place. HypeAuditor’s 2024 ranking put Nobody Sausage first, with more than 7.9 million followers. That ended Lu’s run of three editions on top (Meio & Mensagem, 12 November 2024). Kapwing’s May 2025 count had Lu narrowly back ahead.

Lil Miquela is the usual starting point for the first wave. She posted first on 23 April 2016, made by Trevor McFedries and Sara DeCou’s startup Brud. By 2018 she had done a Prada Instagram takeover and a Calvin Klein ad with Bella Hadid, per Wikipedia.

Dapper Labs bought Brud in October 2021, and McFedries said the company keeps developing Miquela (TechCrunch, 4 October 2021). TIME put her at 2 million Instagram followers in November 2025.

Among photo-real accounts made with generative AI, Granny Spills has the largest following on this list: 1 million on Instagram (TIME, November 2025). Aitana Lopez, a model the Barcelona agency The Clueless built for brand shoots, had over 380,000 at the same date.

In this Spanish-language interview, the news channel adn Noticias talks to Aitana as if she were a guest.

Hablamos con Aitana López, la influencer que no existe en la vida realadn Noticias

Aww Inc. in Tokyo composites a computer-made face onto photos of a real model, Bloomberg reported in 2020, when she had Porsche and IKEA work. In 2024 she appeared in Coach’s Find Your Courage campaign (Retail Dive, 20 February 2024).

The biggest AI influencers on TikTok

Nobody Sausage, an animated character, has the biggest TikTok following in the published counts of AI and virtual influencers: 22.1 million in May 2025. That is three times Lu do Magalu’s 7.4 million on the same date (Kapwing).

FN Meka shows how fast TikTok fame can turn. The AI rapper from the virtual label Factory New had over 10 million TikTok followers when Capitol Records signed him in August 2022. Capitol “severed ties” days later, after criticism that the project perpetuated stereotypes, including an image of the rapper beaten by a police officer (XXL, 23 August 2022).

Granny Spills grew to about 400,000 TikTok followers in her first weeks. TikTok then flagged her videos as “unoriginal” and took them out of its “Creator Rewards Program”, TIME reports. Her makers say they plan to earn through Facebook, YouTube and Cameo instead.

What famous AI influencers have in common

The first is a named owner: 10 of the 13 accounts in the table have a company or creator on record.

The second is a narrow job. Lu sells for one retailer. Shudu is a fashion photographer’s digital model. Milla Sofia was made as the face of a Finnish online shop’s ad campaign, her anonymous creator told MediaPost in August 2023.

The third is a label, though not always a visible one.

Mia Zelu posted from Wimbledon in 2025. Her bio says she is AI, but only behind a “Read More” button (Tennis.com, 16 July 2025). Meta and TikTok both label photo-real AI video, with different rules for stills: is an AI influencer legal? sets out the rules.

The money is less steady than the follower counts suggest. Aitana Lopez’s creators told Euronews she earns up to 10,000 euros in a month, about 3,000 in a typical one. TIME cites a Business Insider finding that brand partnerships with AI accounts fell 30 per cent on 2024. The AI influencer earnings data gathers the published figures.

Make your own AI influencer

Granny Spills shows the new route. Two people write with a chatbot and film nothing: AI video models make every clip. TIME reports each video takes her makers 5 to 10 minutes.

Higgsfield runs Seedance, Kling, Veo and its own image models on one subscription (Higgsfield pricing), and includes an AI influencer builder. Its AI Influencer builder makes a character from 19 menu settings and returns a close-up and a full-body shot for 1.12 credits a run.

A reference clip then sets how the character moves on video, and Higgsfield’s help article lists the steps from first character to animation.

How do I generate a character?

1. Open higgsfield.ai/ai-influencer-studio and select Create new.

2. Set the base identity in the Builder panel: character type, gender, origin, skin color, eye color, skin conditions, and age.

3. Fine-tune in Advanced settings: the Face, Body, and Style tabs.

4. Generate. The credit cost is shown before you confirm.

5. Refine the result if needed: use the buttons under the preview to regenerate or save, or type a change into the Type to customize character field and select Edit: text edits cost credits, and the exact cost is shown on the Edit button.

How do I animate the character? You can turn the character into video directly from AI Influencer with the video button under the preview. For motion driven by a real performance, record a video of yourself performing the movement and use Motion Control with your character’s image and your recording as the motion reference: the character follows your movements while keeping its own look.

To keep the same face in every post, Higgsfield’s Soul ID trains a character’s identity once and reuses it.

What is Soul ID?

Train once and reuse the identity.

A trained Soul ID works across the Soul family.

The Higgsfield AI Influencer Studio guide shows each screen. The AI influencer hub covers every step from niche to first post, with other tools for each. Picking what your character posts about comes first: AI influencer niche ideas starts there.

If you would rather pay an existing character than build one, AI influencer marketing covers hiring. In the video below, a creator builds and fixes a character in Higgsfield’s Influencer Studio.

The Only AI Influencer Guide You’ll Ever Need in 2026Isa does AI

Questions about famous AI influencers

Who is the most followed AI influencer?

On Instagram, Lu do Magalu leads with 7.8 million followers, just ahead of Nobody Sausage’s 7.7 million (Kapwing, May 2025). On TikTok, Nobody Sausage leads with 22.1 million.

Who was the first AI influencer?

Lil Miquela posted first, on 23 April 2016. Shudu followed in April 2017, and Imma in 2018.

Are famous AI influencers labelled as AI?

Some say so only out of sight: Mia Zelu’s AI disclosure sits behind a “Read More” button in her bio (Tennis.com, July 2025). Meta and TikTok both label photo-real AI video.

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